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Doctors and activists demand action with over 25,000 unwanted babies born a year and as dangerous abortions continue.
by Ahmed El Amraoui & Maha Naami 25 Feb 2018 Casablanca, Morocco
About two years ago, Zohra's boyfriend abandoned her when he discovered she was pregnant.
Suddenly, she was faced with an unwanted pregnancy.
In Morocco, abortion is criminalised and punishable by prison and fines, except in the cases of married women whose medical reports prove that the pregnancy carries a physical threat. Even in such cases, a husband's approval is mandatory……………..
Read more here: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/morocco-strict-abortion-law-reform-180224224122230.html
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Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.) Updated February 23, 2018
This week Morocco’s parliament adopted a new law to combat violence against women, by a vote of 122 to 55. Initially drafted in 2013, this law “criminalizes acts considered forms of harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill treatment of women,” according to Minister of Family Affairs, Women and Solidarity, Bassima Hakkaoui………………..
Read more here: http://moroccoonthemove.com/2018/02/23/king-morocco-moves-country-forward-womens-rights-ambassador-edward-m-gabriel-ret/#sthash.N8SrloSv.dpbs===============================================
Caitlin Dearing Scott, SVP, Research, Programs, and Policy, MAC Updated February 21, 2018
After over a year of debate and five years since its drafting, the Moroccan Parliament finally passed a new law last week to combat violence against women. The new law – the result of much discussion between political parties and civil society – criminalizes “acts considered forms of harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill treatment” of women in the country and imposes tougher penalties on perpetrators of such acts.
Moroccan Minister of Family, Solidarity, Equality and Social Development Bassima Al-Hikawai praised the law for defining all kinds of violence that can be practiced against women and “offering preventive measures, a system of gender-sensitive content that emphasizes the status of violence against women on account of their sex, and even aggravating the punishment in this case.” Civil society likewise welcomed the adoption of the law, though for some women’s rights organizations, the law didn’t go far enough, particularly in its failure to address marital rape………...
Read more here: http://moroccoonthemove.com/2018/02/21/womens-rights-morocco-slow-steady-progress-caitlin-dearing-scott/#sthash.XWkA3HbE.mRvh2gDg.dpbs
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Progress, but Some Gaps; Further Reform Needed
(Tunis)
Morocco’s new law on violence against women provides protections for survivors but contains gaps that should be addressed, Human Rights Watch said today. After more than a decade of advocacy by Moroccan women’s rights organizations, Morocco has adopted Law no. 103-13 on combating violence against women. Morocco’s government presented the revised bill no. 103-13 on March 17, 2016, to the House of Representatives (first Parliamentary chamber), which passed it with some minor improvements on July 26, 2016 and sent it to the House of Councillors, the second chamber. It made some minor improvements on January 30, 2018, and returned it to the first chamber. Despite women’s rights groups’ vigorous lobbying to improve protections, on February 14, 2018, the House of Representatives approved the law without further change. The law will come into effect six months after it is published in the official bulletin………….
Read more: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/26/morocco-new-violence-against-women-law
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Monday 26 February 2018 Nicole Jawerth, IAEA Office of Public Information and Communication
Farmer El Haj Abdeslam and his three helpers spent years fighting soil erosion that swept away their crops’ fertile ground, taking their incomes with it. Now Abdeslam and many Moroccan farmers like him are saving their soil and their source of food and money using soil-conservation methods selected with the help of nuclear science.
“Year after year, soil erosion was making the quality of my land worse and that made my farm less productive,” said El Haj Abdeslam, a farmer from the Tétouan region, whose 5-hectare chickpea and cereal farm feeds his family of seven and is his sole source of income. “Since the scientists helped me to conserve my soil, my farm has been producing 20 to 30% more with less input, and my income has gone up.”………….
Read more here: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/how-to-win-a-fight-against-soil-erosion-nuclear-science-helps-farmers-in-morocco
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Morocco: New Violence Against Women Law.: progress, but Some Gaps; Further Reform needed. Morocco’s new law on violence against women provides protections for survivors but contains gaps. That should be addressed, Huma Rights Watch said today. ……………
Read more here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/26/morocco-new-violence-against-women-law
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Newly passed law criminalises ill-treatment of women but fails to define domestic violence, outlaw marital rape
By Reuters March 1, 2018
A hotly-debated new law aimed at protecting women in Morocco against domestic violence does not go far enough, said women’s rights activists who have campaigned for reform for years.
The law passed in the Muslim country earlier this month criminalises “harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill treatment of women”, according to the women’s ministry.
But it failed to define domestic violence or explicitly outlaw marital rape said Rothna Begum, Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch……………
Read more here: https://world.einnews.com/article_detail/434708104/xH3OT6KZz0SJ1kgA?n=1&code=F0A6UI8SDeLVJB2O
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February 28, 2018 New Delhi, March 1 (IANS)
Reforms in the traditional education system and empowering women are the two major agendas Morocco is following in its efforts to counter terrorism and radicalisation, a top diplomat of the North African nation has said.“We still have the problem of dealing with the traditional education system,” Assia Ben Salah Alaoui, Ambassador at large for Moroccan King Mohammed VI said in a speech on “Morocco’s Security Strategy: Preventing Terrorism and Countering Extremism” organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) think tank here on Wednesday.
Read more here: http://world.einnews.com/article/434682733/UdSf2ZhHMTgGmdCx
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By Nicolas Niarchos February 28, 2018
Near the beginning of “A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me,” the second novel in Youssef Fadel’s trilogy about nineteen-eighties Morocco, the heroine, Zina, takes a bus, at night, to go searching for her husband, Aziz. He has been missing for seventeen years. “It’s dark outside and inside the bus,” Zina thinks, in Jonathan Smolin’s translation, which was published in 2016. “I see shadows moving in the aisle between the rows of seats and from time to time I hear the muttering of a passenger dreaming. The travelers are sleeping, certain that their trip isn’t so important as to be the first or the last, relaxed in the knowledge they’re just coming from one place and heading to another.”
The scene is typical Fadel, full of darkness and longing, and driven by a character moving through a penumbral, uncomprehending world. Zina hardly knew Aziz before they were married, and he was arrested on their wedding night; he has been locked away in a secret prison. Aziz, we learn, is a pilot who has been accused of helping to plot a coup against Morocco’s King, Hassan II. He languishes in an ancient casbah that has been transformed into a dank jail. The setting recalls an actual casbah, in the Atlas Mountains, where political dissidents were held during the nineteen-seventies and eighties. Fadel’s novels remind us how the evil of state repression and the humdrum lives of people on a bus are linked—even rely on each other to exist…………..
Read more here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/to-be-a-writer-you-have-to-be-against-the-state-youssef-fadel-illuminates-moroccos-past-and-present===============================================
Hanae Bezad wants to empower trainees to express themselves as they learn the intricacies of coding.
February 25, 2018
It was on a sabbatical back from South America that Hanae Bezad started to think about the state of high-tech in Morocco. Her country, she realised, was desperately seeking skilled talent.
Bezad, 28 and a former consultant to companies on the CAC40 French stock market index, decided to return home and get involved. The result is Le Wagon Casablanca, an intensive coding boot camp that has taken the French concept to Morocco.
Read more here: https://thearabweekly.com/moroccan-woman-sets-out-drive-digital-revolution
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By Safaa Kasraoui February 24, 2018 Rabat
Counterfeit medicines and expired pharmacy drugs, some illegally manufactured, are being sold without authorization or prescriptions. The issue has now prompted the Ministry of Health to boost public awareness about the effects and dangers of buying fake medications. Moroccan newspaper Al Akhbar reported in its weekend issue that 15,000 poisonings are recorded every year due to unauthorized medicines….
Read more: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/241278/counterfeit-medicines-cause-15000-poison-cases-morocco-annually/
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2/23/2018 4 (MENAFN - Morocco World News) Rabat
The fifth Islamic Conference of Ministers in Charge of Childhood kicked off Thursday in Rabat. Focusing on the theme 'Towards a Safe Childhood,' the conference seeks to assess the realities of children living across the Islamic World and how to ameliorate them in future.
Describing the importance of the conference in his own words, King Mohammed said, 'I firmly believe this important conference is an opportunity to take stock of the real situation of children in the Islamic world, exchange experiences and expertise and ponder the best ways to rise to the growing challenges faced by children.' …………
Read more here: http://www.menafn.com/1096505289/Morocco---Todays-Children-are-Tomorrows-Citizens-King-Speaks-at-5th-Islamic-Conference-on-Childhood
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By Samir Bennis February 23, 2018 New York
In reading the comments recently of several Moroccan intellectuals on the need to reform Morocco’s educational system, I was surprised to see that some blame the Arabic language and Islam for the problems that affect it.
In recent years, with the rise of terrorism in most Arab and Muslim countries, we are witnessing the emergence of a new narrative, according to which Arabic and Islam are the major catalysts pushing those who are left behind economically or politically in Morocco toward extremism and jihadism, and not ignorance, extreme poverty, neglect by politicians, corruption, nepotism, or even a catastrophic educational system………….
Read more here: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/241233/arabic-language-islam-moroccan-educational-system/
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By Tamba François Koundouno February 24, 2018 Rabat
The Moroccan Association of Sexology has appealed to the Moroccan ministry of health, asking the relevant authorities to exempt medical doctors from the delivery of the virginity certificate, a document they say violates both doctors’ oath of medical confidentiality and the right to privacy of the persons (girls) for whom it is delivered. The document, generally required of young girls about to marry, has long been a hot-button issue in various Moroccan circles, especially opposing “progressive” and “conservative” Moroccans on what family and religious values should be……………………….
Read more here: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/241301/controversy-morocco-delivery-virginity-certificates/=
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ByMorocco World News February 24, 2018 Rabat
After a number of gays and lesbians came out of their shell to demand their rights as citizens of Morocco, a wave of trans genders’ rights campaign followed, demanding the same rights. Moroccan youth, who identify as a “a group of transgender, transsexual, and gender non-conforming individuals”, announced the establishment of their own body in a meeting held in Rabat…………..
Read more here: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/241302/moroccos-transsexual-community-creates-a-collective-body/
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By Zachary Weiss • 02/28/18
When it comes to planning a wedding, opulence can come in many forms. An endless shower of rare champagne or a surprise musical guest could always do the trick, but nothing stands out more than nuptials that take place in an exotic locale. In addition to sharing a dance or ten with your friends and family, there are many more memories that can be made while globetrotting to a destination steeped in history quite like Marrakesh, Morocco. With plenty of renowned hotels (updated with the requisite modern amenities), this romantic desert city provides a host of options for the sort of unforgettable moments that will blow your college roommate’s wedding festivities out of the water………
Read more here: http://observer.com/2018/02/the-guide-to-getting-married-in-marrakesh-morocco-like-a-socialite/
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Caroline Roux 1 March 2018
Marrakech isn’t quite the centre of the contemporary art world – but it was for a moment this weekend. The tireless Princess Alia Al-Senussi, who sits on boards from the Tate to the Guggenheim, had arranged a series of sparkling parties around town. Glen Lowry, the director of New York’s MOMA, left an exclamatory “Bravo!” in the visitors’ book of the recently opened Museum of Contemporary African Art (MACAAL).
Read more here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/la-mamounia-154-art-marrakech/
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By Safaa Kasraoui- February 24, 2018 Rabat
As someone who was born in 1991, I know that people born in the 80s and 90s lived in a “golden age”, a period of good memories and endless opportunities. One thing from the 1990s that I am most proud of is the cartoons that made my, and many other people’s childhood such an unforgettable experience. Here, I will list the top most memorable and joyful cartoons that made the 80s and 90s unforgettable for many Moroccans……………….
https://world.einnews.com/article_detail/433944867/wdVBSrdq91A3pyjk?n=1&code=F0A6UI8SDeLVJB2O
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By Mark Mahon February 28, 2018 Rabat
French-Moroccan film director Nabil Ayouch was born in Paris to a Muslim Moroccan father and a Jewish Tunisian mother. His lineage informs his work as a film director, complex layers of personal, cultural, social, and religious narratives that make his films innovative and engaging. Prior to the release of Horses of God in 2012, Ayouch had directed a handful of small- and medium-sized films and produced dozens of others. But Horses represented his arrival as a master storyteller. He followed up Horses with two more major films, Much Loved (2015) and Razzia (2017). The three films each capture so much about Morocco’s social complexity.
Read more here: https://world.einnews.com/article_detail/434547385/wDCdAIuU46wAhcMC?n=1&code=F0A6UI8SDeLVJB2O
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